Latest Articles

The vote

After Sens. Barrasso and Baucus (D-Mont.) spent a few minutes fawning over coal, they moved to the vote.

Here's the roll call.

Yea:

Baucus
Lautenberg
Lieberman
Warner (by proxy)

No:

Isakson
Barrasso
Sanders

Indeed, Sanders rejected it. But, as they say, the ayes have it, and it will be reported favorably to the full committee.

Barrasso and the supposed good will in the GOP

Barrasso (R-Wy.) wants the bill to sunset after five years. This amendment will die, fortunately, but don't forget it. It's emblematic of the supposed goodwill the GOP has in this process.

P.S. Lieberman is drowning Lautenberg in obsequiousness. It looks to me as if the chairman has simply accepted the likelihood that Bernie Sanders will oppose this thing and he's counting on the New Jersey senator to pull the bill over the top. The vote's coming up in moments.

Sanders again!

John Barrasso (R-Wy.) has proposed about seven of his own amendments. Most have been either withdrawn or defeated. The others are fairly weak -- so forgive me for skipping them.

Sanders, on the other hand, is trying desperately to strengthen this thing, and is meeting with almost no success. He wants to limit the total tonnage of carbon that companies are allowed to offset (in lieu of direct reductions). But Lieberman ... does not.

He also wants to increase the mandatory emission reductions under the cap -- to require 80 percent reductions, mandatory reductions, by 2050.

This is key. The numbers we've heard from Senator Lieberman -- that his bill will lead to emissions reductions in the neighborhood of 65 percent -- are based in large part on projections. ACSA's mandatory emissions reductions -- the ones under the cap -- are really very weak.

But not too weak for Joe Lieberman.

Sanders has said this is his most important amendment. It's going to die. So, possibly, will the chances that he'll vote yes on the bill.

Sanders’ fifth amendment

This is a big one. He wants the bill to move to a full auction of allowances by 2026 as opposed to 2036 as currently stipulated. A lot of enviros would like a 100 percent auction from day one, so this isn't as radical as it sounds, but it's still immensely important.

But Joe Lieberman says no. He says that the bill as is will already involve some hardship to some industries, so they basically need tons of subsidies. Right.

Lieberman paid lip service to the possibility that the auction provisions might be strengthened later on, but said that 2036 is the "balance point" for political compromise right now and killed the amendment nonetheless.

Sanders’ fourth amendment

This one would require the EPA to act if the National Academy of Sciences learns that we have not taken sufficient action to avoid the worst effects of global warming. It's a so-called "look back" amendment.

Lieberman ... opposes it! His own amendment package calls for periodic NAS reports, directs the EPA to review those reports and recommend changes to America's Climate Security Act to the Congress. That's an important difference. There's pros and cons to each. Under a good EPA administrator, the Sanders' amendment would be extremely important. Under an EPA administrator like the current one, it would mean four years without look backs. Lieberman's amendment defers to Congress, which as we all know doesn't always get things done super fast.

Lautenberg has proposed changing this amendment in a way that would allow Congress to override EPA recommendations, and Sanders has agreed to withdraw the amendment until it can be considered in the full committee.

Opposing Sanders

Joe Lieberman better have buttered up Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) fairly thoroughly, because he's certainly not courting Bernie Sanders.

That said, Lieberman has supported Sanders' third amendment, a modest change to the bill requiring the auto industry to meet the CAFE standards -- 35 mpg -- passed by the Senate this year.

This amendment, gratefully, has passed.

Sanders’ second amendment

He wants to carve out funds, currently expected to benefit the auto industry, and dedicate them to improving efficiency. Sanders notes that the language in the bill is extremely weak -- it indicates a flood of subsidies to the auto industry without spelling out specifically what's expected from the auto industry in return.

How did chairman Lieberman react? He opposed it, of course! (That basically kills it.)

Update: It failed.

Amendments

Bernie Sanders' amendment would carve out a chunk of money from the subsidy package for low-and-zero-carbon technologies and earmark it specifically for wind, solar, and other renewable-energy companies. Lieberman opposes it on the grounds that (a) it's too large a handout to wind and solar, and (b) he wants to wait to spell out the winners of the subsidies in order to keep a coalition of support (which includes an antinuclear faction) in the Senate together. That will pretty much kill the amendment.

Update: Yup, it's dead.

Oxfam warns Europe’s biofuel boom likely to worsen plight of world’s poor

The anti-poverty charity Oxfam said this week that the European Union’s rush to biofuels could hit the world’s poor quite hard. The group released a report about the issue suggesting that without proper controls to make the biofuels boom sustainable and more just, it’s likely to threaten the food supply and provide a large incentive […]

U.S. recalls 440,000 more leaded toys, including novelty teeth

If Halloween itself wasn’t the fright-fest you’d hoped for, maybe the most recent round of leaded-toy recalls will do the trick. This week’s list includes 1,500 Ribbit board games, 16,000 sets of Elite Operations action figures from Toys ‘R’ Us, 380,000 Galaxy Warriors figures, and 43,000 sets of novelty teeth. The teeth were found by […]